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John Lennon and Yoko with legal team (Jay Bergen at far right) at Sloppy Louie’s in New York, 1975.

Lennons, Lawsuits and Lawyers

By Bob Ruggiero

May 27, 2022

Over the course of his 45-year career as a lawyer, Jay Bergen has questioned or cross-examined a considerable number of litigants in open court. But there’s one in his mind that tends to stand above all others. “He was the best witness that I ever had!” the now-retired counselor says...

Here's your chance to review performances like this ROCO one in 2021.

The Houston Press: Has Opportunities Available For Arts Critics Freelancers

By Margaret Downing

May 24, 2022

The Houston Press has a number of freelancer opportunities available for writers in the fine arts. We are looking for people to review performances in dance, symphonic music and visual arts. Book reviewers and popular culture writers are also on our wanted list. Did your love for ballet extend beyond...

Barry Manilow and Melissa Manchester at the Schaefer Music Festival, September 12, 1975 at Central Park in New York City.

Arista Records and the Quest for Musical Magic

By Bob Ruggiero

May 16, 2022

In the music industry, Clive Davis is a legend—and he’ll be the first to tell you so (or, you can watch the 2017 documentary, The Soundtrack of Our Lives). But while his long resume shows his fingers as an executive and label president in a lot of places, it’s his...

Founding members Pat Simmons and Tom Johnston lead a performance by a latter-day version of the Doobie Brothers. The new book Long Train Runnin' chronicles the history of the band and its many conglomerations.

Doobie Brothers Founders Release Joint Autobiography

By Tom Richards

May 13, 2022

One of the most revealing portions of the new Doobie Brothers autobiography Long Train Runnin’ (St. Martin’s Press, 352 pp., $29.99) is contained in one of the appendices following the narrative proper. In the section headed “Former Members,” 23 musicians are listed. That is some serious turnover, putting the Doobies...

Mugshot of Ricardo Flores Magón, ca. 1903.

Book Uncovers Story of "Bad Mexicans" with Good Intentions

By Bob Ruggiero

May 4, 2022

No, the titular group of this book aren’t the “Bad Hombres” that a certain former U.S. President fretted about. Rather, they were the malos mexicanos dubbed so by their own countrymen who were supporters of (given how one believed) the great leader or despotic dictator, Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, who...

Felix Cavaliere recently performing Rascals hits.

Felix Cavaliere: A Rascal Tells His Tale

By Bob Ruggiero

Apr 14, 2022

Otis Redding couldn’t believe his eyes when he stuck his head inside an Atlantic Records studio where a fairly-new group called the Rascals were recording. “My God!” the big soul superstar exclaimed. “They are white!” One of the label’s biggest stars couldn’t be faulted for assuming that, though. A lot...

Jean Beauvoir in the mid-1980s around the time of his debut solo record, "Drums Along the Mohawk."

Jean Beauvoir: A Life of Music and Mohawks

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 29, 2022

Jean Beauvoir has certainly had a wide-ranging career. As a globe-trotting performer, songwriter, producer, and even business executive, his decades of stories and experiences are all over the place. But they all come together in his new memoir written with John Ostrosky, Bet My Soul on Rock ‘n’ Roll: Diary...

Bob Dylan and then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo on the cover his second record, 1963's "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan."

Bob Dylan Memories Unearthed—More Than 50 Years Later

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 22, 2022

Today, it seems every rock musician regardless of talent or time in the spotlight has either a biography or autobiography on them. Sometimes several. But when New York Post journalist Anthony Scaduto—who covered both the Mafia and pop music beats—published Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography in 1972, it was a...

Literature just became a lot more interesting.

Opinion: Hardy And Nance Studios' Banned Proves Reading Is Fundamental

By Sam Byrd

Mar 18, 2022

On Saturday from 5 - 9 p.m., Hardy & Nance Studios will present Banned: Art Inspired by Banned Books. In it, more than 30 artists will display their works that draw inspiration from across the boards for illicit literature.

"Reality Bites"—filmed partially in Houston—was a pivotal movie for Gen X and 1990s culture.

The '90s — in All Their Glory and Infamy — Return in a New Book

By Bob Ruggiero

Mar 14, 2022

To his admirers, Chuck Klosterman is one of today’s most trenchant, incisive and often very funny pop culture critics and historians. Readers devour his books and essay collections like Fargo Rock City and Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. Others can find him too-hip-for-thou. Regardless, his newest effort—the straightforwardly-titled, The Nineties:...

In Savage Journey, Peter Richardson casts a dispassionate eye on Hunter S. Thompson, seated here at his desk in his fortified compound near Woody Creek, CO.

Plenty of Fear, Plenty of Loathing in New Hunter S. Thompson Biography

By Tom Richards

Feb 3, 2022

Certain individuals among us – primarily those of us who were once teenage males, fancied themselves writers, and edited their high school newspapers during the 1970s – could recite this passage from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas verbatim: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert...

The Libby app on OverDrive: free library books without ever going to the library.

Houston and Harris County Public Libraries Report a Surge in Ebook and Audiobook Lending in 2021

By Houston Press

Jan 31, 2022

The Houston Public Library has reported a record-breaking number of ebook and audiobook checkouts in the past year as fear of spreading the coronavirus kept people out of in-person visits for many months. It's the proverbial silver lining found amid the disappointment to both patrons and library staff that during...

Merle onstage during his shades-and-hat era, looking, well, haggard. In a new biography, Marc Eliot documents the life and career of the man who, he says, saved country music.

The Hag Gives Readers the Good, the Bad, and the Merle

By Tom Richards

Jan 27, 2022

Some years ago, a radio station was about to switch its format. Management decided to, as they say in the business, “stunt” for a week or so prior to the debut of their new programming lineup. Then someone came up with the idea of playing nothing but Merle Haggard all...

It's not a long or particularly difficult book to understand, but conservatives get it wrong anyway.

Things Conservatives Get Wrong About 1984

By Jef Rouner

Jan 26, 2022

Conservatives love to miss the point of popular literature. I’ve lost count of the number of conservatives who didn’t get that the bad guys in Atlas Shrugged were crony capitalists, not the mean old government, and let’s not even get into the ones who think Jesus wanted people to be...

Mel Brooks received a Kennedy Center Honor from President Barack Obama in 2009. This and other show business adventures are recounted in his new autobiography.

Filmmaker Mel Brooks Focuses on Himself

By Tom Richards

Jan 5, 2022

In his new autobiography, Mel Brooks provides behind the scenes accounts of his classic films and regales the reader with stories from his life in show biz.

The Patti Smith Group in the 1970's: Jay Daugherty, Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith, Richard Sohl, and Ivan Kral.

Time, Place and Musicians Collide in Expansive Rock History Book

By Bob Ruggiero

Dec 24, 2021

Lenny Kaye is best known as the guitarist, songwriter, and musical partner of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Patti Smith since the 1974 inception of the Patti Smith Group and her later solo work. And record nerds are forever grateful to him for compiling 1972’s Nuggets, the seminal and...

Here are some new books to add to your shelf.

Best Horror Novels of 2021

By Jef Rouner

Dec 24, 2021

Horror literature is finally going through a similar renaissance as horror film. I sat down with a lot of scary books this year. Here are five of the best to enjoy while it still gets dark early. 5. Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw A woman dreams of having...

The original Van Halen: David Lee Roth, Alex Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen and Michael Anthony

Eddie Van Halen's Life Story Erupts in New Book

By Bob Ruggiero

Dec 23, 2021

When Jan and Eugenia van Halen emigrated to the U.S. from Holland in 1962, their two sons only knew four words of English. “Yes,” “No,” and – for some reason – “motorcycle” and “accident.” That was the complete vocabulary for eight-year-old Alex and seven-year-old Edward as they got off the...

Chris Ballew from the Presidents of the United States of America ("Lump," "Peaches") now makes his living as children's music performer Caspar Babypants!

Book Asks (and Answers): What Happened to Your Fave '90s Alt Rockers?

By Bob Ruggiero

Dec 10, 2021

Now that high school and college graduating classes of the 1990s are reconvening for their 25 or 30-year reunions, Gen X CD purchasers will undoubtedly share their musical as well as educational memories. Some will recall the sounds of bands like Nirvana, Arrested Development, Marcy Playground, Letters to Cleo, Jesus...

Uncovering a Sometimes Uncomfortable History About Houston's Black-Jewish Relationships

By S.L. Wisenberg

Dec 7, 2021

There’s no story here. Eight years ago when Allison Schottenstein was communicating with scholars and Jewish Houstonians about mid-century Black-Jewish relations, they told her she was wasting her time. Nothing there. She was in Houston to find a topic for her University of Texas dissertation in Jewish history. Houston had...

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